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Language analysis in the humanities

Published:01 July 1972Publication History
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Abstract

The use of the computer in the language-oriented humanities for exhaustive listing of detail (as in indices and concordances) is widespread and accepted as desirable. The implications of the computer for a “science” of the humanities—a science entailing gathering data for the construction and testing of models—are neither widely recognized nor accepted. This paper argues that the computer's major role as to language analysis in the humanities will be the establishing of such a science. Thus, for those areas of the humanities for which rigor and precision are necessary (e.g. analyzing literature or teaching a student to write a composition) the computer can be a critically important facilitator.

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      cover image Communications of the ACM
      Communications of the ACM  Volume 15, Issue 7
      July 1972
      209 pages
      ISSN:0001-0782
      EISSN:1557-7317
      DOI:10.1145/361454
      Issue’s Table of Contents

      Copyright © 1972 ACM

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      Publication History

      • Published: 1 July 1972

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